1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a touch panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Alongside the growth of computers using digital technology, devices assisting the computers have also been developed, and personal computers, portable transmitters and other personal information processors execute processing of text and graphics using a variety of input devices such as a keyboard, mouse, and so on.
While the rapid advancement of the information-based society has been widening the use of computers more and more, there have been occurring the problems of it being difficult to efficiently operate products using only the keyboard and mouse as being currently responsible for the input device function. Thus, the demand for a device which is simple, has a little function, and has the capability to input easily is increasing.
Furthermore, current techniques for input devices exceed the level of fulfilling general functions and thus are progressing towards techniques related to high reliability, durability, innovation, designing and manufacturing. To this end, a touch panel has been developed as an input device capable of inputting information such as text and graphics.
The touch panel is mounted on the display surface of a flat panel display device such as an electronic organizer, a liquid crystal display (LCD), a plasma display panel (PDP), an electroluminescence (El) element or the like, and the display surface of an image display device such as a cathode ray tube (CRT), so that a user selects the information desired while viewing the image display device.
The touch panel is classifiable as a resistive type, a capacitive type, an electromagnetic type, a surface acoustic wave (SAW) type, and an infrared type. The type of touch panel selected is one that is adopted for an electronic product in consideration of not only signal amplification problems, resolution differences and the degree of difficulty of designing and manufacturing technology but also in light of optical properties, electrical properties, mechanical properties, resistance to the environment, input properties, durability and economic benefits of the touch panel. In particular, a resistive type touch panel and a capacitive type touch panel are prevalently used.
However, in the touch panel according to the related art, problems occur in connecting signal wirings formed on a transparent substrate to a flexible printing cable (FPC). FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a touch panel according to the related art. Problems of the related art will be described with reference to FIG. 1.
As shown in FIG. 1, the touch panel 10 according to the related art includes a transparent substrate 20, a transparent electrode 30 that is formed on the transparent substrate 20, signal wirings 40 that are extended from the transparent electrode 30 and gathered into one end of the transparent substrate 20, and a controller 50 that is connected to the signal wirings 40 through a flexible printing cable 60. Herein, the flexible printing cable 60 serves to transfer the signals generated from the transparent electrode 30 to the controller 50 via the signal wirings 40. At this time, the flexible printing cable 60 need to be certainly connected to the signal wirings 40 in order to secure the reliability of the signal transfer of the flexible printing cable 60. Presently, however, a connection A between the flexible printing cable 60 and the signal wirings 40 are manually connected using a conductive adhesive. Therefore, a roll to roll (R2R) process cannot be applied during the manufacturing process of the touch panel, such that the manufacturing costs of the touch panel cannot be reduced. In addition, the flexible printing cable 60 is manually connected to the signal wirings 40 and thus the connection A is structurally weak, such that defects occur when a force of predetermined strength or more is applied.